Thursday, July 17, 2008

Well it's another Wednesday. Just thought I would take a second before I throw my self on the old pillow to pass out and catch everyone up with us. The bus is coming along the floors should be finished tomorrow and then we still have insulation to put up on the side walls. After the insulation we will be ready to layout our few walls that we are putting in.We are getting Isabelle ready and packed for horse camp coming up this Sunday. She will be away from us for twelve days. this will be the longest that she has been away from us so it will be weird. She loves horses and she loves being with all the girls she meets at camp.Conner and Lincoln are in Kung Fu camp all this week. The money spent on this camp is worth every penny when we see Lincoln bowing out to his Master when he leaves camp each day. watching him and Conner do the things that they had learned is a treat as well. The are both having a blast. What boy wouldn't enjoy a camp where he goes and he is aloud to punch, kick and be incouraged to do more of it?Winston is sad that he is to young to join in on the camp with the boys, but he gets in his share of sucker punches at home. Winston is growing so fast. He's started talking about how Papa, Grandma, Arielle, Toby, Uncle Jim and every one else is going to think that he is a big kid when they see him in September.Bryce is looking hotter then ever in her dreads!I think she is starting to get use to them. They do have to grow on you. She is really wanting to head out on the road, but the bus is taking longer then we thought it would or could take. She is very patient about it. We picked Black Berries and Rasberries today at a friends house and Bryce made a raw berry pie. It was delicious. Almond and Cashew crust with Black Berries,Rasberries and Blue Barrie filling.I am running the boys to and from camp daily and then returning to the bus to lay the recycled hard oak flooring. I have used all the pieces that we had gotten free. I finished the whole bus except for two little areas that are on the sides in the very back of the bus. We have pieces of purgo that will hopefully be enough to finish it all. Nothing much really going on with me, but being Dad and husband. Hope all is well today for everyone. Good night

Friday, July 11, 2008

After two long days of sitting in chair and having my hair pulled, I have beautiful DREADS!!!! I don't know what to say still about them, but wow I have so much hair! My hair before the dreads measured out to be 19" long. Now they are 12" long. My hubby did a great job!

So as I was following Steve, him in the SUV pulling the camper and me driving our (future home) bus. We were finally heading home to Asheville from Statesville when around Hickory my gages all started going crazy and I could not accelerate. Thankfully my brakes did work and as I pulled over I noticed smoke coming out of the battery compartment. All I could think of was that I was about to blow up. Steve did not see me pull over so I grabbed my phone to call him. About this time it started raining. I grabbed our 2 big fire extinguishers that we had rented for our firework stand and my purse and got out quick. Of course we still had our fireworks that our manager had given us in the bus. You know the BIG illegal ones and they were sitting right above the battery compartment. I ran around the back of the bus and saw the smoke was coming from the battery compartment and not the engine (we have a rear engine). I called Steve & told him to come back right away and that our bus was on FIRE! I could see flames in the battery compartment. I had never used a fire extinguisher & was too upset to figure it out. About this time a small car with it's trunk open pulled up behind me. A guy got out and shut the trunk and went up the embankment with his pocket knife and started cutting off branches. He started sharpening the branches. I was so scared that he was planning on killing me or something that I couldn't think straight. The bus was on fire and crazy guy was sharpening branches with a knife and where the HELL was Steve??????? Finally Steve got there and put the fire out (yeah....he figured out the extinguisher in like 2 seconds) and the crazy guy came over and asked Steve for a wire hanger or something because he had locked himself out of his car. His trunk had apparently popped open while he was driving so he pulled over to close it and had accidentally hit the lock button when he got out to shut the trunk. So he was trying to sharpen a branch to slim jim the lock. The guy actually was very nice and after Steve got his car unlocked he stuck around to help us get the burnt up batteries out of the bus and then took us to Auto Zone to get new batteries. We had 4 in the compartment and 3 were melted pretty bad. 2 were the house batteries for the bus and 2 were 6Volts for our solar panels that were not hooked up yet. One of the house batteries looked ok, well it was covered in ash, but not melted like the others, but we decided to replace both house batteries just to be safe. The parts guys was surprised the batteries did not explode. We also bought lots of electrical tape to cover ALL the wires as that is what Steve thinks happened was 2 exposed wires ignited. Those of you that know Steve well know he is not a car guy. He didn't even know how to put oil in a car when I met him! So we were both kinda wondering if he would be able to fix it. We had a family prayer and from that point on I knew he would fix it. Things went really smoothly when we got back to the bus. I helped (mostly watched) Steve install the new batteries and wrap all the wires. Then the true test came....starting the bus. I went to start it and nothing. Then he tried and he noticed I had not put the air brakes on (big mistake) and I left it in Drive!!! Well the bus WAS on FIRE and I WAS in a hurry to get out! OOPS! So he quickly fixed that and got it started. We then headed home with him behind me this time. We got home around 10:30 pm so a 2 hr drive became 7hrs, but we all got home safe.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

While we lived in the Wal-mart parking lot for 12 LONG days we used a porta potty (composting toilet) of sorts. Well we actually used Wal-mart mostly, but they closed at 11pm so we had a 5 gal bucket in the camper with a toilet seat. We put a garbage bag in the bucket and covered the "deposits" with pine chips. We (Steve) would tie the bag up and throw it away in the garbage cans in the parking lot everyday. Well we cleaned up the firework tent on Sunday and the tent guys came and took the tent down. It was nice to know our job was over and it was time to have some fun and see if Boone had more to offer then the Wal-mart parking lot! It rained ALOT while we were there so I had lots of wet dirty clothes to wash and we were hoping to get showers (at the local pool).....if there was no lightening. So I took all the laundry to the laundry mat and Steve worked on vacuuming and cleaning up the camper. We had talked about moving the camper & bus to a campground, but didn't want to pay a ton for camping so we thought we'd just stay parked at Wal-mart for a few days while we checked out the town. Those plans changed pretty quick when Steve had an employee knock on the camper door and warned him that the store manager was really upset coming to talk to him. Apparently one of the employees that was emptying the outside garbage cans had torn the bag and our poop bag leaked and went all over his shoes.....NASTY!!! So Steve went in and apologized and paid for the guys shoes and cleaned up the crap! He called me at the laundry mat and said we needed to move ASAP. We still needed showers so we got the camper & bus ready to go then headed to the pool to get a quick swim & shower. But as soon as we parked at the pool it started pouring and let me tell you I've NEVER seen rain come down so fast & hard as it does in Boone and without any warning. So they closed the pool and wouldn't even let us just shower because of the lightening. It had rained everyday except 2 that we were there. We had planned on taking the kids to Tweetsie (old town amusement park with a train ride), but they didn't really want to go except Winston. The older kids wanted to go rafting or tubing instead. At this point we were so worn out from our long stay in the parking lot and exhausted from working 16-18 hr days and trying to keep the fireworks dry, and the poop issue that we decided we had had enough of Boone and were ready to go home to Asheville. Of course it's not just that easy as going home, cause we still had some inventory that needed to be returned to Statesville the next day. So we decided to drive to Statesville and parked at Camping World (RV dealership) for the night. The next morning we talked to the sales manager to see if they would buy our camper. He was extremely depressed as business is not going well (to say the least). Gas prices have just about killed the RV market. He said a yr ago they would of bought it and resold it right away. So we continued on. We returned the last bit of fireworks we had and ate lunch and headed for home. Ready for some R&R!I'm sure we will visit Boone again and enjoy it someday!See our next post for our big adventure from Statesville to Asheville......... you would think it would be a quick 2 hr ride home, but not so!